Why this Blog ?
News articles in the Wide World of Web, quite often disappear with time, when they are relocated as archives with a different url. Archives in this blog serve as a library for those who are interested in doing Research on Aadhaar Related Topics. Articles are published with details of original publication date and the url.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholarUsha Ramanathandescribes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the#BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

Friday, December 9, 2016

Indian banking sector is plagued with cases of cyber fraud and it’s time to examine the root of the problem.

Over 3.2 million customers across 19 banks were exposed to financial fraud last week. Despite alerts to expect hacks as part of cyber warfare in retaliation to India’s surgical strikes against Pakistan, we seem to have been caught unprepared. In fact, over the last five years we have seen the exposing of banks to hack attack through what may be termed technology terrorism. Should you be worried?

BANKING

Central to the banking profession is trust. It takes decades for banks and bankers to build the trust; it takes minutes to wipe it away. Respected banks have been built on trust reinforced by focus on core banking and its values. Increasing cases of banking fraud plague the Indian banking system and perhaps it’s time for the bankers to step back and examine the root of the problem.

Over the last five years, the banking sector is being “disrupted” by technology. Or so we are told by technology pundits who want to bring ease of on boarding customers, ease of scaling outreach, sometimes wrongly called financial inclusion, and ease of anytime, anywhere banking. Some even call this as the WhatsApp moment of banking.

Clayton Christenson, Harvard professor who coined the phrase “disruptive innovation”, has repeated that disruption was about reaching the un-served and the under-served. Disruption was not about destroying the existing business processes using technology.

Since the incorporation of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a non-government public company, in December 2008 and the notification of the Unique Identification Authority (UIDAI) of India as an autonomous body of the Planning Commission of India in January 2009, technology has been pushed at speed, sometimes without regard to core banking or its values. Technology has been pushed in the banking sector a variety of methods without a full understanding of what such technology may result in. In the past five years, selective technologies have been pushed without adequate assessment about the risks it may expose customers and banks to.

The common point between the reported banks whose customers are among the 3.2 million customers compromised in the alleged debit card hack last week is that they are part of the 17-19 banks of NPCI’s RuPay and UPI initiatives.

CREATING RISK

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) succumbed to UPA-era pressures from the UIDAI in January 2011 by allowing the Aadhaar or UID number for its Know Your Customer (KYC) process. The RBI had maintained that the use of the Aadhaar number was in conflict with the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Basel Standards for maintaining customer information and its own extant guidelines. The RBI, however, placed accounts opened with the Aadhaar number to the same restrictions of small bank accounts under the PMLA. The UIDAI talked of the use of Aadhaar numbers for KYC as “using technology for the ease of onboarding of new customers”.

Strangely, Nilekani, currently advisor to the NPCI and former chairman of UIDAI, has recently commented on this changing proprietary authentication to public authentication.

Not happy with the restrictions, the UIDAI pressed to push the RBI to lift the restrictions placed on accounts opened with Aadhaar numbers under the PMLA. It was simultaneously working with the NPCI to develop an Aadhaar Based Payment System that would use the Aadhaar associated with a bank account as a financial address to do electronic money transfers from one Aadhaar number to another. The UIDAI succeeded, in September 2011 through the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, in persuading the RBI to suspend the restrictions of small bank accounts under the PMLA on bank accounts opened solely with Aadhaar numbers. The UIDAI also succeeded in making the RBI further to accept eKYC or remotely using information associated with an Aadhaar number as KYC. According to the UIDAI, eKYC brings scale to the ease of onboarding customers. Private fintech companies have been advocating smartphones for e-KYC and described onboarding as “self service”.

Citing the ease of telecom, Nilekani says dual SIM phones make switching SIMs practically free. He highlights that only one in 20 SIMs constitutes a new user. This, in practice, may enable at least 20 identities and associated bank accounts to be managed by one person. The UIDAI eKYC documents require that no data is kept by those initiating the eKYC other than the response from UIDAI. This response from the UIDAI is to be kept for at least six months for audit purposes. The complex network of agencies providing eKYC, the absence of audit processes being in place and the complete absence of permanent record of customer information leave no means to verify and audit the existence of real persons in whose name millions of bank accounts may have been opened.

HACKING THE -BANKING SYSTEM

The NPCI, in the meanwhile, has pushed several technology instruments around the Aadhaar Based Payment System including RuPay cards and Unified Payments Interface (UPI). According to the NPCI, these technologies provide virtual payment address, account portability, ease the transfer of money in real time, allow both payer and payee to initiate payments, replace smart cards with mobile apps, replace point of sale and operate across different platforms. This means using a smartphone, a payee or a payer can transfer money across virtual payment addresses instantly. The originating or receiving account number in such transactions becomes untraceable if the mapping of virtual payment addresses is altered. This facilitates unauditable money transfers. Combined with the ability for a payee to initiate a transfer remotely from anywhere, puts deniability of transactions by an unwilling payer near impossible.

In pushing the Aadhaar number as the magic, its proponents forget that this is merely a random number allotted to demographic and biometric data submitted by private parties. It has never been verified or audited to confirm the identity, address or even existence of persons. Furthermore, if it was the biometric that uniquely identified anyone, making it the safest identifier, why would a number ever be needed to query the UIDAI database? The biometric should suffice.

Bankers recognise receiving money in accounts not traceable to originators or receivers as money laundering. This is usually done to park black money, fund organised crime and terrorism, take bribes or to siphon public funds.

The common point between the reported banks whose customers are among the 3.2 million customers compromised in the alleged debit card hack last week is that they are part of the 17-19 banks of NPCI’s RuPay and UPI initiatives. Just weeks before, the NPCI had denied a major breach of customer data of banks on its Aadhaar based platforms. Using the NPCI’s UPI, smartphones can be used as a remote cash dispenser to virtual addresses. The payment can be initiated by the payer or payee. There will be very limited trace left by such a transaction. It is likely that such a hack may appear as withdrawals from ATMs at various locations.

The media has been buying the NPCI line that debit cards were hacked across 19 banks through ATM malware. No one has been looking for the common point for customer money transfers for the 3.2 million customers across 19 banks. ATMs are certainly not such a common point, nor can they facilitate withdrawals in China, as reported in some media reports. Clearly the payment system that is common to these banks may have been used to compromise customers.

Interestingly, the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) cautioned banks more than two weeks ago, in view of India’s surgical strikes on the border, to be on heightened alert. According to reports the NCIIPC has not received any reports of the incidents as required under the rules. With every hour of delay in getting independent cyber forensic experts to investigate such incidents vital evidence to protect the national banking system and ensure national interest is lost.

With the government reportedly placing the Consolidated Fund of India within the ambit of such technology “disruptions” by the NPCI, a non government public company, the questions are not only of conflict of public and private interests, but even more seriously about not how but when will India in the grip of compromisable technologies witness a cyberwar that will destroy the banking and financial system in minutes. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi can ensure that such a fate be avoided, by ensuring a rigorous examination by unbiased experts on possible technology-related vulnerabilities in the banking system.

Dr Anupam Saraph, a professor, future designer and former governance and IT adviser to former Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and the Global Agenda Councils of the World Economic Forum, can be found on Twitter at @AnupamSaraph

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

The Rural Development Ministry headed byJairam Rameshcreated a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

What People Opposed to Aadhaar said:

Aadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”

John Dreze,Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

UID project is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions, but no answers -Usha Ramanathan

The Reserve Bank says Aadhaar is not good enough to open a bank account

You can Beat the UID reader with candle wax and Fevicol - J.T.D Souza

The very premise of Aadhar is flawed

It is a certification that those who claim to think on behalf of India or its underprivileged understand it so differently from the beneficiaries they think of.

In a nutshell, Aadhar will not bring about any of the benefits that are intended for its intended beneficiaries. Because that will be solving a problem of governance by adding another layer, that is imaginary and unnecessary.

To call it "technological leadership" is as removed from reality as calling a reader a writer of the book. At best it will mean that we can take a technology and ram it down the throat of the poor while other nations with stronger democratic roots and respect for citizens have not been able to do so for reasons of building consensus.

"Aadhar" is like dropping a car by helicopter in a village where there is no road and hope every villager can reach wherever they may want to go.

For anyone willing to think, Aadhar is a reflection of the huge disconnect that India has from both the world of the under privileged and the rest of the world.

Aadhaar the Last Nail in UPA II's Coffin

"All we have to show for the hundreds of thousands of crore spent on Aadhar is a Congress ticket for Nilekani" Yashwant Sinha.(27/02/2014)

UID NOT UBIQUITOUS ANY LONGER MR. NILEKANI - TRUTH HAS PREVAILED JUST BEFORE THE ELECTIONS.

WhatsApp gained users because it was useful, and people wanted to download and use it. Aadhaar, sadly, cannot be said to have "users" yet. There are as yet few uses. This is why Mr Nilekani has to emphasise the number of enrolments, not the benefits that flow from Aadhaar - because those exist today only in theory. And the simple fact is that enrolments should not be seen as a sign of success. The Only Good Idea - Business Standard

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

TV Mohandas Pai, former chief financial officer and head of human resources, tweeted: "selling his soul for power; made his money in the company wedded to meritocracy." Money Life Article

The expose shows how citizens of Nepal and Bangladesh are offered Aadhaar cards without identity proof. The sting reveals that even MLAs and gazetted officers sign on the forged documents to make Aadhaar cards. IBN Live

To refer to Aadhaar as an anti corruption tool despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary is mystifying. That it is now officially a Rs.50,000 Crores solution searching for an explanation is also without any doubt. -- Statement by Rajeev Chandrasekhar,MP & Member, Standing Committee on Finance

Finance minister P Chidambaram’s statement, in an exit interview to this newspaper, that Aadhaar needs to be re-thought completely is probably the last nail in its coffin. :-) Financial Express

Please think through before supporting UID/ Aadhaar, so you do not regret your decision.

Emphasising the need for separation of powers, James Madison bluntly observed in his essay, Federalist 51."Because men are not angels," they need government to prevent them, by force when necessary, from invading the lives, property, and liberty of their fellow citizens. He also noted that the same non-angelic men can wield the government’s coercive machinery to use it tyrannically—even in a democracy.

·The Rural Development Ministry headed by Jairam Ramesh created a road Block and refused to make Aadhaar mandatory for making wage payment to people enrolled under the world’s largest social security scheme NRGA unless all residents are covered.

·Nilekani’s reporting structure is unprecedented in history; he reports directly to the Prime Minister, thus bypassing all checks and balances in government - Home Minister Chidambaram

·AaAdhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.” John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, Ex-NAC Member

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”Mahatma Gandhi

"Protest is not something you delegate, politics is not something you outsource. It is what you stand for literally"Shiv Visvanathan, Indian Express.

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always. "Mahatma Gandhi

"The function of a civil resistance is to provoke response and we will continue to provoke until they respond or change the law. They are not in control; we are."Mahatma Gandhi

"Let us begin by being clear... about General Smuts' new law. All Indians must now be fingerprinted... like criminals. Men and women. No marriage other than a Christian marriage is considered valid. Under this act our wives and mothers are whores. And every man here is a bastard."-Mahatma Gandhi

"It is easy to laugh at people who fire arrows at helicopter gunships, but on the other hand it is not so easy to defeat people who are willing to fire arrows at helicopter gunships."Vietnam: A War Lost And Won' authored by Nigel Cawthorne

You can fool all the people sometimes,You can fool some people all the time,But you cannot fool all the people all the time.Truth Shall prevail.Satyameva Jayate.

Aadhaar was meant to deduplicate peoples id's and Aadhaar itself is a Duplicate of NPR and needs deduplication according to Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) headed by Secretary Sumit Bose.

Which is the bigger crime a poor family double dipping on PDS to stay alive or Govt wasting mega bucks on a white elephant called Aadhaar ?

Remember Aadhaar is not an ID card but just a Number to authenticate and tell you if you are in fact you and UIDAI will splurge Rs1.5 lakh crores ( Rs 1,500, 000, 000,000 ) in the next five years. What do people with Aadhaar get in return ? A lot of empty promises. It won't take long for people in India to wake up and understand what is going on.

How do we explain Loss of Privacy?Privacy is like our VISION.We will appreciate its loss when we go BLIND.

Massive collection of Video Clips on Unique Identity. Click on this Link http://flotadaslimaymedio.com.ar/tag/unique-identification/orderby-relevance/page1.html

WHAT AM I ?????"Yes, it is voluntary. But the service providers might make it mandatory. In the long run, I wouldn't call it compulsory. I would rather say that it will become ubiquitous"Nandan Nilekani, UIDAI Chairman (Excerpts from a conversation with Sadiq Naqvi and Akash Bisht) Answer: Aadhaar, the Unique Identity number & a Bar Code that each and every Indian will be branded with linked to a National Database maintained by UIDAI, with Help from L1 Identity a US Multinational.

"Opponents of the Aadhaar number have included advocates of privacy rights. The number however, is linked to limited personal information, with no profiling data included. Submitting a father’s name for example, is not required, allowing residents to adopt any name of their choosing and free themselves from caste identification."Nandan Nilekani's personal Opinion1061 - We have your number - OUTLOOK

Do all Indians want to become Numbers and be tracked like animals ?Do we have a Choice ?

IF IT TAKES SIX MONTHS TO ISSUE ONE MILLION NOT SO UINQUE IDENTITIES, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO ISSUE 600 MILLION OR 1.2 BILLION UNIQUE IDENTITIES ?

WORDS OF WISDOM

“In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.”Mahatma Gandhi"I have never known legislation of this nature being directed against free men in any part of the world. I know that indentured Indians in Natal are subject to a drastic system of passes, but these poor fellows can hardly be classed as free men."Mahatma Gandhi"...giving of finger prints, required by the Ordinance, was quite a novelty in South Africa. With a view to seeing some literature on the subject, I read a volume on finger impressions by Mr. Henry, a police officer, from which I gathered that finger prints were required by law only from criminals."Mahatma Gandhi"Democracy was the greatest gift of our freedom struggle to the people of India. Independence made the nation free. Democracy made our people free. A free people are a people who are governed by their will and ruled with their consent. A free people are a people who participate in decisions affecting their lives and their destinies".Rajiv Gandhi “How shall a democracy ensure its secret intelligence apparatus becomes neither a vehicle for conspiracy nor a suppressor of traditional liberties of democratic self-government?”Vice-President Hamid Ansari, Hi-tech without Panchayati Raj is just a bogus stunt for geeks and nerds."Mani Shankar Aiyar, Congress leaderAadhaar is not compulsory — it is just a voluntary “facility.” UIDAI's concept note stresses that “enrolment will not be mandated.” But there is a catch: “... benefits and services that are linked to the UID will ensure demand for the number.” This is like selling bottled water in a village after poisoning the well, and claiming that people are buying water voluntarily. The next sentence is also ominous: “This will not, however, preclude governments or Registrars from mandating enrolment.”John Dreze, Visiting Prof of Economics, Uni of Allahabad, National Advisory Committee Member"It is a Bad Idea to Marry UID with NREGA"Reetika Kehera"Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."Ayn Rand “The twentieth century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: the growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy”.Alex Carey, a noted Australian activist."People willing to trade freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both."Ben Franklin.Liberty has never come from the government; it has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it."Woodrow Wilson"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".Edmund Burke"Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist".Edmund Burke"Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms".Simon Jenkins, Guardian UK“Privacy is not something that people feel, except in its absence. Remove it and you destroy something at the heart of being human.”Phil Booth, National co-ordinator of the campaign No2IDIn reality, Aadhaar intrudes into people's privacy that is hidden under the guise of reaching out.Srijit Mishra

Ten things you must know about UID

Some facts about the UID project that Indian residents should be aware of:

1. Aadhaar (the UID number) is not mandatory. People can choose not to be a part of the exercise.2. It is not restricted to Indian citizens only and is meant for residents of India, irrespective of their citizenship. An Aadhaar card does not establish citizenship of India, it is meant for identification.3. Even people without proper identification documents can apply for Aadhaar. Authorised individuals, who already have an Aadhaar, can introduce residents who don't possess any documents to establish their identity to enable them to receive their Aadhaar.4. Aadhar will not replace other identification documents such as ration card or passport.5. The UIDAI will collect only biometric and demographic information about an individual and will not ask for info on caste, religion or language.6. Date of Birth is optional (for people who don't remember/know their date of birth) and approximate age will suffice.7. Transgenders have been included in the options under gender and they need not classify themselves as male or female.8. Residents of India have an option to link their UID number to their bank accounts.9. To get an UID number residents will have to go to the nearest Aadhaar enrollment camp, details of which will be published in the local media. Residents will have to carry along certain documents, mentioned in the advertisement. Residents will also be photographed and have their fingerprints and iris scanned. The Aadhaar numbers will be issued within 20-30 days.10. The draft National Identification Authority of India bill has provisions against impersonation, providing false information and for protection of personal information collected by the UIDAI. Violations can attract penalties in the form of fines of up to Rs 1 crore and imprisonment extending up to a life term.